MUMBAI: The Bombay High Court on Monday directed the Maharashtra Public Service Commission (MPSC) to provide a copy of the answer sheet to a candidate taking the Civil Judge Junior Division and Judicial Magistrate First Class exam, under the Right to Information (RTI) Act.
Following an advertisement issued by the MPSC in 2022, the petitioner, Adnan Abbas Mookhtiar, took the main examination for the post of civil judge junior division and judicial magistrate first class. After he cleared the preliminary and main written examinations, he appeared for the interview. However, even though he had cleared the main exam and the interview, his name was not mentioned on the provisional select list.
Mookhtiar filed an RTI application in 2025, seeking copies of the answer sheet to be furnished to him. However, he was barred from retrieving the copies on the grounds that the final selection list had not been pronounced yet.
Thereafter, he approached the competent authority under the Right to Information Act, 2005, with a request to be provided a photocopy of the answer sheet of his main examination. The competent authority, however, rejected his application on the ground that the examination process had not yet been completed. The first appellate authority too rejected the application.
Mookhtiar informed the court that the general instructions provided to the candidates published by the MPSC, state that if an application is made under the Right to Information Act, 2005, the answer sheet of the candidate concerned can be made available.
On the other hand, advocate Ashutosh Kulkarni appearing for the MPSC submitted that if such applications are entertained at this juncture – before the examination process is completed – it could stall the examination process.
Noting that the standard instructions issued by the MPSC did not specify that a copy of the answer sheet would be made available only upon completion of the examination process, the division bench of Justice M S Karnik and Justice N R Borkar granted relief to Mookhtiar by directing the authorities concerned to provide him the answers sheet.
“We are inclined to allow the petition to the extent that the photocopy of the answer sheet of the petitioner be handed over to him by the Respondent – Maharashtra Public Service Commission – within a period of one week,” the court concluded.